Game Review: Star Wars Battlefront, PS4

If you’ve read Peter’s game reviews over the past while you’ll note that we don’t go into massive detail about modes, best ways to play etc in our game reviews on Culch. There’s thousands of sites for that and we’re casual gamers. We pick up the controller in the evening for an hour or so and we consider our purchases carefully.

Right, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get at Star Wars Battlefront. First thing to say is that this is a hugely anticipated release. DICE Games announced it in 2013 and it’s coming out within a month of the Force Awakens and in ideal territory for the Santa lists. It’s primarily a multiplayer shooter with maps across Hoth, Tatooine, Endor, and Sullust. So:

What’s Great

Full on multiplayer battles: There are 9 multiplayer modes, some better than others. There’s 20 v 20 in Blast where it’s a straight shoot out of kill as many as possible, traditional ‘capture a point’ ones like Cargo and Droid Run and aerial based modes like Fighter Squadron. My favourite would be Walker Assault. Imperials escort whilst rebels attempt to destroy a bunch of AT-ATs as they march toward the base at the end of a path. It’s about as close to being in the movie as you’ll get.

The graphics: If you’re a fan of Star Wars you’re gonna be sucked in by the visuals here. They’re stunning. DICE have managed to bring the original trilogy to life in a spectacular way and the locations genuinely feel like you’ve stepped inside them.

Sound design: Swooping through a valley in your X-wing in an aerial dogfight, blasting a TIE fighter and hearing bits of it bounce off you? Superb.

What’s Not So Great

Not much for the single player: You can take on Training missions which will see you well when it comes to multiplayer, straight out Battles against AI across a number of maps and Survival (best of the bunch) as you try and hold out against wave after wave of enemies. I’d go so far as to say, if you don’t have a PSN subscription, don’t buy it. A PSN subscription will set you back €50 for a year and will let you play multiplayer across whatever games you own now and into the future.

Longevity: Here’s the rub. Battlefront’s combat can be monotonous. It’s largely built around medium range gunfights where you hope to end up the one who’s not dead or fleeing out of their range. Vehicle combat offers slightly more and there’s a lot of satisfaction in taking a snow speeder’s tow cable to an AT-AT over Hoth. The developers have tried to address the issue of progression with a system of upgrades like new character skins, weapons etc but I’m not sure that’ll keep casual gamers occupied for as long as they’d hope.

Overall

It’s the best Star Wars gaming experience you can buy at the moment, particularly if you’re a fan of the original trilogy. Be warned though that you’re definitely gonna need to have PSN for multiplayer to get anything out of it and it does get repetitive.

Star Wars Battlefront is out on Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One now.